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Oregon Lottery made right call on spending

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The popularity of video poker machines boosted Oregon Lottery revenue, including the 1 percent dedicated to problem gambling. So much money has flowed into the gambling fund during the past decade, in fact, that lawmakers have diverted millions for other purposes.
(Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian)

While other institutions like the Bottle Bill enjoy enduring goodwill, the best the Oregon Lottery can hope for is profound ambivalence. When you capitalize upon the weakness of addicts in generating huge sums of money, it just isn't enough to adopt chipper mottos like It Does Good Things. So you can imagine the discomfiture in some quarters when agency officials decided recently to slash funding for misery-mitigation efforts.

Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie, proclaimed herself "disturbed," reported The Oregonian's Harry Esteve last week. Tomei was referring both to the legal opinion behind the Lottery's change in direction and to the temerity exhibited by Lottery officials who asked for a legal opinion in the first place.

The impulse to lash out at an institution designed to prey on weakness is understandable, but the legal opinion makes a persuasive case for the Lottery's decision. If you're not inclined to trust our legal judgment – can't blame you there – there's also this: Nothing prevents the Legislature from boosting the 1 percent of Lottery loot it already sets aside for problem gambling treatment. If it wants to, that is. Recent history suggests otherwise.

The legal opinion, delivered by the Department of Justice back in March, asks whether it's OK to use the Lottery's administrative funds for programs to treat problem gambling. The answer is "no." The state Constitution requires administrative funds to be used for ... administrative stuff. Such funds, the state Supreme Court said back in 1994, should be used for "expenses or costs of internal implementation or management of the lottery." As a result of the March opinion, the Lottery has stopped spending administrative funds on, among other things, advertising designed to combat problem gambling.

Nobody -- least of all lottery officials -- would oppose the use of other lottery funds to help people with gambling problems, whether through programs or targeted advertising. That's why lawmakers decided years ago to send 1 percent of lottery revenue to the Problem Gambling Treatment Fund.

One percent might not sound like much, but it's 1 percent of a large and, for a time, rapidly growing pie. One percent represents so much money, in fact, that lawmakers have diverted large chunks from the fund during every biennium since 2001-2003, when they took about $1.2 million. During the 2009-2011 biennium, more than $2.1 million was diverted, reducing the amount sent to the gambling fund to about $9.2 million. And even during the 2011-2013 biennium, when the gambling fund received about $10 million, almost $800,000 was diverted, according to the Legislative Fiscal Office.

We don't claim to know what the proper level of funding for gambling programs should be, but the Legislature's actions suggest that it's less than 1 percent of Lottery revenue. Given that fact, there shouldn't be a need to pay for anti-gambling advertising with money constitutionally dedicated to administrative expenses. If, on the other hand, lawmakers suddenly believe that 1 percent isn't enough to pay for both existing gambling programs and some extra advertising, they can always allocate more.

What they shouldn't do is suggest that Lottery-related ills require the expenditure of money in a manner prohibited by the Constitution. Dislike of gambling can take you only so far.